I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week, but preperation day is Tuesday this week because of the All mission conference with Elder Allen D. Haynie (part of the new area presidency). This week was excellent and very very busy. Some days we didn't even have a chance to fully plan, and just had to plan as we go! Also, Florence didn't really hit us. It turned south, and being here in the north end of the mission, Stafford was hardly affected at all. Just a tiny bit of rain and a breeze.
We called OrbComm on Tuesday to pair our new tiwi (little robot box that yells at us when we speed or drive aggressively) with our car. That was pretty neat. We also did some good member visits, one of which we were specially prompted to do! He had just moved into the area, and he came to institute and brought his brother as well because of it! We also had dinner with one of our favorite members (though we have a lot of those) at Mission Barbecue, a really good Barbecue place here in Stafford! (I also thought the name was pretty appropriate.) We also had institute (my first institute class on my mission), and it was super great! It is a brand new course on the new Saints book the church released. The book is free on gospel library, go read it!
Wednesday was pretty sweet as well! We had district council first thing, which went quite well! We decided to start doing a district prayer every Saturday for the people we are teaching, and to do a district pump up every Monday night to get us ready for the week! We also had a sweet exchange with the Aquia Elders! They are super great, and we saw some sweet exchange miracles with them! We set several appointments, and found some new opportunities, and some of the appointments were quite possibly YSA's!
Thursday was our busiest day, we finished off the exchange with the Aquia Elders, and had about an hour to start weekly planning before lunch. And then things got really crazy! We were going to see Todd and Kori this evening, but that didn't work for them, so we moved them up to the afternoon right after another appointment we had, which was right after lunch, so we had just enough time to plan out what we wanted to teach before running around. We had to pick up a fellow-shipper on the way (which wasn't really on the way), and then their appointment went long, so we were late for dinner! We are forever grateful for the forgiveness and patience of that angelic member!
Friday was our big planning day. We did our weekly planning this afternoon after comp study, and were sending texts and making and answering calls all throughout, so over all it was about 4 hours of sitting in the apartment. We were super ready to get out by the end! We had a really neat dinner with another of our favorite members, during which we were able to help him know how to encourage his recent convert friend to remain active and to separate themselves from many around them who were not good influences spiritually. I think it really built a lot of trust with him.
We had a very unique opportunity on Saturday to have a stake missionary meeting, which was presided over by Elder Sinclair of the 70! It was a really neat meeting, much like early church meetings with much prayer, and each of us seeking revelation. Very cool. We did some visits in the rain after, and got to talk to one of our members after an appointment fell through. We also had a lesson with a practicing Catholic! We had a great dinner appointment, and were able to set up a chapel tour with a girl over Facebook! It was a great day.
Sunday was fun, we had 6 hours of church! We had Stafford stake conference in which President and Sister Smith spoke, and so did Elder Sinclair! They gave excellent talks. Then we went to the branch (which still had church because it's technically in the Fredericksburg Stake), which also went well. We had dinner with the Haderlies that night (he's from Montana!) and had pot pie! Brother Haderlie was getting some flak for liking ketchup on his pot pie, but I was right there with him! I can relate to him a lot, and he also kind of reminds me of dad. Good times. We also had one of the most fire
face2faces I've ever seen! Elder Cook and the historians just gave the most solid answers ever! To some hard questions too! I received a very distinct spiritual impression at the end, which was really neat.
Finally, the all mission conference with Elder Haynie went very well on Monday! We received some great training on setting expectations, and finding scattered Israel! It seriously changed my perspective so much! Always remember: the reason why member work is so key is because scattered Israel (the believing blood) likes to hang around gathered Israel! So we will create our own personal finding army of members! We will also ask for referrals from everyone! And, of course, talk to everyone as well! I had Panera bread for the first time tonight with the Paul's, who are super cool! Then we had a really neat Family Home Evening on family history!
Anyway, sorry for the long letter, and sorry for sending it a week late! I had technical difficulties last week.
Elder Brown
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| Fun district picture |
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| In the car, My companion and I were testing the lighting for a video chat |
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| Spider Season |
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